In the last 12 months, Google’s efforts for the use of artificial intelligence to accelerate the design of drugs have reached discoveries in the imitation of human biology and have won its best scientists the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Now Isomorphic Labs, the division within the software giant, intended to develop and market technology, is taking another big step: to raise funds from an external investor.
ISOMORPHIC plans to announce Monday that you have collected $ 600 million, led by Thrive Capital, the risk capital company that has largely bet for artificial intelligence companies including Openai. Even GV, Google and Alphabet’s venture capital arm, Google’s parent company, have invested.
The announcement underlines Google’s ambitions for ISOMORPHIC, which was broadcast by the company’s Deepmind laboratory to focus on the discovery of drugs. It is built on software that Deepmind, a central intelligence laboratory in London, has developed. This includes Alphafold, which can foresee the structure of millions of proteins and more.
Alphafold, which now in its third iteration can include the complex behavior of DNA and the ARN, has promised to cut the development time of new drugs. Such is his promise that Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Isomorfe and Deepmind, and John M. Jumper, a Deepmind researcher, shared half of the Nobel in chemistry last year.
The goal, according to Mr. Hassabis is to lead most of the process of discovery of drugs via computers, rather than traditional workshops that require biological materials, rigorous safety requirements and a lot of time.
“This is the most advantageous n. 1 application of artificial intelligence outside,” said Hassabis in an interview. He added: “Our mission, one day, is to solve all the diseases” with ai
Isomorphic is looking for potential treatments, including those focused on cancer and immune disorders. Last year, he signed research partnerships with two main drug producers, Eli Lilly and Novartis, who could produce billions of payments through promising drug discoveries.
But as for many things related to the AI, work and taking the best talents of research to perform it, it is expensive. Hassabis said that ISOMORPHIC did not need capital – his mother -friendly company recorded a profit of over $ 100 billion last year – but it made sense to bring an external partner.
With the thought of Mr. Hassabis, doing so had long been a chance. But he added that he had wanted a long -term fixed supporter also deeply focused on life sciences.
Additional money will help isomorphic to expand its stable of research models such as Alphafold, as well as to recruit the best talents through scientific disciplines.
“The ambition of the company is to be a complete life -stack science company, therefore it requires more capital to create more drugs while also investing in the technological platform,” said Vince Hankes, a partner Thrive who has led many of the company’s artificial intelligence investments.
Hassabis added that he wanted to be selective in Isomorphic partners; Formal talks with Thrive took place for a few months.
Fundraising is another important bet by the 15 -year -old Thrive, who has coined money that invest in companies such as Instagram and The Payments Processor Stripe. Recently, it has focused on artificial intelligence companies, including the guidance of a recent round in Openni which has almost doubled its evaluation to $ 157 billion, as well as the DataBricks analysis provider and the start of the Anysphere programming.
“Our hope is that the IA is radically changed the way the drugs are created and discovered,” said Joshua Kushner, founder and partner of CEO of Thrive. “Isomorph is pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the discovery of small molecule drugs.”
Over the next year or so, Isomorphic hopes to have made more discoveries in computational models such as Alphafold and perhaps the candidates for drugs approach the preclinical tests, said Hassabis.
The isomorph will probably collect money from multiple external investors, he added. The goal is that the company is an independent company.
“This will be one of the most consequential companies in circulation,” he said. “We want it to be a real power plant in the sector.”